# On the Need for One-on-One Mentoring

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-19 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Wm. Keith Bookwalter, On the Need for One-on-One Mentoring, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> On the Need for One-on-One Mentoring
> 
> William Keith Bookwalter
> 
> January 6, 2023 (Updated: 6/21/2023; 3/30/2026)
> 
> In my opinion, the current Nine Year Plan needs to be supplemented with a process of
> one-on-one mentoring of new Bahá’ís or those who are “standing at the threshold” of
> becoming a member of the Bahá’í community. A dictionary definition of “mentor” is “a
> trusted guide or counselor.”1 I was fortunate to have Knight of Bahá’u’lláh, Olivia Kelsey,
> as my mentor. She was not assigned to me. I became a Bahá’í on my own via
> independent study. I sought her out after signing my card. Fortunately, she lived close
> to where I did. Perhaps deepened, experienced, veteran Bahá’ís could voluntarily sign-
> up via a spiritual assembly or area teaching committee to serve as mentors to “deepen”
> new Bahá’ís and those who are close to the Faith in person or via the Internet.
> 
> In the following passage from Promoting Entry by Troops,2 a 1993 compilation, Shoghi
> Effendi is quoted regarding, what appears to me, to be a one-on-one, mentoring,
> deepening process that includes “reading” or “diagnosing” a friend or acquaintance,
> choosing a direct or indirect teaching method, deepening and inspiring until “maturity”
> as a Bahá’í is reached, introduction to the community, and training for a life of sacrificial
> service. The integration of this deepening with the training program of the institute
> process, that is, with study circles and their training components for specific services
> such as children class teachers, junior youth animators, and study circle tutors, would,
> no doubt, have to be an organic one.i
> 
> Shoghi Effendi advises the Bahá'í teacher to advance the process of deepening
> for a person who is attracted to the Faith: “Let him [the Bahá'í teacher/mentor]
> consider the degree of his hearer's receptivity, and decide for himself the
> suitability of either the direct or indirect method of teaching, whereby he can
> impress upon the seeker the vital importance of the Divine Message, and
> persuade him to throw in his lot with those who have already embraced it. Let
> him remember the example set by ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, and His constant admonition to
> shower such kindness upon the seeker, and exemplify to such a degree the spirit
> of the teachings he hopes to instil into him, that the recipient will be
> spontaneously impelled to identify himself with the Cause embodying such
> teachings. Let him refrain, at the outset, from insisting on such laws and
> observances as might impose too severe a strain on the seeker's newly
> awakened faith, and endeavour to nurse him, patiently, tactfully, and yet
> determinedly, into full maturity, and aid him to proclaim his unqualified
> acceptance of whatever has been ordained by Bahá'u'lláh. Let him, as soon as
> that stage has been attained, introduce him to the body of his fellow-believers,
> 
> i
> In his talk (2011) titled “The American Bahá'í Community” Alí Nakhjavani (timecode 36:00) refers to the
> coordination between such mentoring and the spiritual child’s participation in the core activities: YouTube,
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rlywd5WOiN0&list=WL&index=37&t=501s.
> and seek, through constant fellowship and active participation in the local
> activities of his community, to enable him to contribute his share to the
> enrichment of its life, the furtherance of its tasks, the consolidation of its interests,
> and the co-ordination of its activities with those of its sister communities. Let him
> not be content until he has infused into his spiritual child so deep a longing as to
> impel him to arise independently, in his turn, and devote his energies to the
> quickening of other souls, and the upholding of the laws and principles laid down
> by his newly adopted Faith.” (Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice
> (Wilmette, IL, Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1990), 51-52.)
> 
> During a gathering of mostly veteran Bahá’ís in Ashland, Oregon in 2014,3 the elder
> Bahá’ís who referred to themselves as the “old geezers”ii were exploring their possible
> roles in the new Framework for Actioniii which places emphasis on the leadership of
> youth in children’s classes, junior youth groups, and study circles. Participants offered
> examples of the support they were giving which included: providing financial support,
> preparing food for groups of youth, sponsoring or supporting devotional meetings,
> reactivating firesides and deepening classes, going back to offering talks on favorite
> subjects to other communities (travel teaching), and tutoring youth to improve their
> reading skills. An additional option would be personal mentoring. The content could be
> based on the sixteen subjects prescribed for the new Bahá’ís in Latin America by the
> beloved Guardian in his letters published in Citadel of Faith (the numbering of different
> topics and the emphases are added):
> . . . familiarize the Latin American believers with the (1) administrative duties and
> functions they will be called upon to discharge and to enrich and deepen their
> knowledge of the essentials of their Faith, its (2) ideals, its history, its (3)
> requirements and its (4) problems, must be carried out with ever-increasing
> energy . . .4
> The highly salutary and spiritually beneficent experiment of encouraging a more
> active participation by these newly won supporters of the Faith in Latin America,
> and a greater assumption of administrative responsibility on their part, in the ever
> expanding activities to be entrusted wholly to their care in the years to come,
> should be, in particular, developed, systematized and placed on a sure and
> unassailable foundation. Above all, the paramount duty of (5) deepening the
> spiritual life of these newly fledged, these precious and highly esteemed co-
> workers, and of enlightening their minds regarding the (6) essential verities
> enshrined in their Faith, its (7) fundamental institutions, its (8) history and
> genesis—the (subsumed under Nos. 6, 7 & 8: [9] twin Covenants of Bahá’u’lláh
> and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the [10] present Administrative Order, the [11] future World
> Order, the [12] Laws of the Most Holy Book, the [13] inseparable institutions of
> the Guardianship and of the Universal House of Justice, the [14] salient events of
> 
> ii
> Timecodes: 1:12 and 1:32:34
> iii
> Timecose: 1:07:45
> the Heroic and Formative Ages of the Faith, and its [15] relationship with the
> Dispensations that have preceded it, its [16] attitude toward the social and
> political organizations by which it is surrounded—must continue to constitute the
> most vital aspect of the great spiritual Crusade launched by the champions of the
> Faith from among the peoples of their sister republics in the South.5
> For each of these topics, deepening and training materials could be created by Bahá’í
> scholars and educationists at various reading levels along with guidelines for mentors in
> a particular language and then translated to other languages.iv
> 
> End Notes
> See: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mentor
> Shoghi Effendi and Universal House of Justice, “Promoting Entry by Troops” in Compilation of
> Compilations, Volume 3, compiled by Research Department of the Universal House of Justice (Mona
> Vale, Australia: Bahá’í Publications Australia, 2000), 154-202.
> “Questions & Answers (Part 2),” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_LgwIp48rY&t=4188s.
> Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith: Messages to America 1947–1957 (Bahá’í Publishing Trust: Wilmette,
> IL, 1965), 61.
> Ibid. 76-77.
> 
> iv
> See my commentary “On How to Improve Ruhi Institute’s Course Organization and Educational
> Approach to Deepening New and Young Believers and Human Resource Training”
>
> — *On the Need for One-on-One Mentoring (Used by permission of the curator)*